The three judges who heard the case could have sentenced the defendant, Schapelle Corby, to death, a fate met by many foreigners convicted of drug offenses in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries.

The actor Russell Crowe, an Australian, also weighed in for Ms. Corby. “How can we, as a country, stand by and let a young lady, as an Australian, rot away in a foreign prison?” he said on a radio talk show.

“We gave Indonesia how many hundreds of millions of dollars in tsunami relief?” Mr. Crowe asked.